Jason breaks down how Luka Doncic and LeBron James led the Los Angeles Lakers to a win over the Clippers behind the NBA's best defense over the past 21 games, how Donovan Mitchell and the Cleveland Cavaliers won despite a massive Boston Celtics run led by Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, and how Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets picked apart the Detroit Pistons defense.
Timeline
4:00 - Start
5:30 - Lakers/Clippers
24:30 - Celtics/Cavaliers
35:00 - Nuggets/Pistons
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Episode Transcript
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(01:25):
b ball. All right, welcome to hoops tonight. You're at
the volume heavy Saturday. Everybody, Oh balve. You guys are
having a great weekend. I'm actually staying up to record
this on Friday night. We've got a jam Pack show
(01:46):
for you guys. Today. I'm gonna be breaking down the
Clippers Lakers showdown from last night. As the Lakers, after
getting dominated by the Clippers for a long time, they've
actually won five out of seven in that matchup another
super interesting example of the Lakers dealing with the switching defense.
We're going to talk about that. After that, we're going
to get into a showdown between the two teams that
I believe will eventually face off in the Eastern Conference Finals.
(02:08):
The Cleveland Cavaliers survive two massive runs from the Boston
Celtics to tie the season series at two, getting a
big win on the road in Boston. Then at the
tail end of the show, I want to talk a
little bit of Denver Nuggets. They've had a uneven stretch
of games here recently. They're two and one, I believe
on the road trip so far. I want to talk
about two concepts with them. One, the concept of inverted
(02:30):
spacing as I watched Jokic pick apart the Pistons off
ball defenders through just acting as a passing folkrim at
the top of the key. And then I want to
talk about the stuff that Denver has to get better
at on defense if they want to make a legitimate
run to get back into championship contention. You guys know
the drip before we get started. To subscribe to the
Hoops and I YouTube channels. You don't miss any more
of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JCNLT.
(02:52):
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It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and
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keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments. We'll get
to him on Fridays throughout the remainder of the season.
All right, let's talk some basketball. So when I looked
at the initial matchups to start this Clippers Lakers game,
(03:15):
I saw the Tylu put Zubach on Dorian Phinney Smith,
and so my first impression there was, oh, we might
have a repeat of the Knicks game when they put
Karl Anthony Towns on Dorian Phinney Smith, and the Lakers
just spammed a bunch of pick and pop action to
get Dorian Phinney Smith in space. But there was a
very smart defensive strategy that Tylu implemented in this game.
(03:39):
After watching a bunch of film of the Lakers struggling
against switching, he just decided to have Zubach switch all
those screens. That's why you saw so many of those
ISOs out around the top of the key with either
Lebron or Luca attacking Zubach in space, and I thought
generally did a good job. He pretty much contains rebel
penetration for the most part and force those guys into
(04:01):
a lot of jump shots over the top. Lebron was
really carrying the load in the early part of the
game by just settling into that mid range jump shot
right around like seventeen eighteen feet out kind of by
the top of the key area. But again, like the
Lakers did struggle again for the most part, and you know,
I don't think they're going to really generate a ton
(04:21):
of offense against switching defenses until Luca gets back to
the Luka Dancic that we know he's capable of being
an MVP level shot maker. Right. We saw even just
a tiny little touch of it at the end of
the game when Luca made a couple of big step
back threes that led to an adjustment from Tye. We'll
get to that in a second. But until Luca really
(04:43):
gets back to his MVP level form on the offensive end,
and until the Lakers start knocking down their catching shoot attempts,
this is their third straight game where they got less
than one point per catch and shoot attempt. They've been
struggling to shoot the basketball a lot. I do think
they'll shoot better in the long run. But until those
two things turn around, until Luca gets going, and until
they start knocking down the catch and shoot shots, they're
(05:04):
going to struggle against defenses that switch. And they struggled
for long stretches in this game. But we did see
a little Luca run in that fourth quarter. That was
a taste of what things should look like in the
long run when Luca gets going. So it's a couple
of step back threes over zubach In switches one on
the left wing, one kind of out on the right
side of the floor. Now at that point, Tyleru had
(05:24):
to make an adjustment. He started putting two on the ball.
Once Luka put two on the ball, then they were
able to get the defense into rotation and generate quality
looks out of that and open look for Dorian Finney
Smith in the right corner that he knocked down a
dunk for Jackson Hayes on a slip to the rim.
They started to get good looks because they got two
to the ball again, like We're gonna talk about this
(05:44):
a lot when we get into the Celtics game as well.
But there's like an order of operations. In order to
break down a switching defense. You have to start getting
a matchup you like and attacking it well enough that
you score at any rate that is untenable for the defense.
Once you start scoring at a rate that's untenable for
the defense, then you can start bringing two to the ball.
(06:05):
Once you can start bringing two to the ball, then
you can start to generate the same type of opportunities
that they got in the Denver game, where it's like,
now we're getting a lot of these four on threes
in the ball's popping around, We're getting wide open shots
for people. They actually handled the double teams better in
this game than they did it was the I believe
it was the Dallas game if I remember correctly, that
they kind of struggled against double teams. But again, like
(06:28):
that's a little tiny taste for Lakers fans and what
that could look like in the big picture. Luca going
on these scoring runs against switches leading to him getting blitzed,
then you have all this opportunity on the backside of that.
Now again, like it got a little tricky in this
game because it's not Austin Reeves. Austin Reeves leaves the
game with the calf injury. He's gonna be getting an
(06:48):
MRI on that. Hopefully Austin's okay, we'll find out soon.
Ruyacha Mura Jj Redick talked after the game, is dealing
with Peteller tendonitis or tendon tompathy, if I remember correctly,
like something's going on with the front of his knee.
He's gonna be out for about a week. So take
those two guys out of the rotation. You're bringing guys
into the rotation that are lesser offensive players. You know,
(07:08):
Trey Jemison basically operating as the backup center when that's
been a lot of small ball looks anchored by Ruey
and then you're getting a lot more Jordan Goodwin because
Austin Reeves is out of the lineup. Right, those guys
are not as good in terms of offensive threats. Although
they scraped tonight. We're gonna talk about it in a
little bit. So they're gonna be a little tricky in
these four on threes in the next couple of weeks.
(07:30):
As Lebron and Luca have to kind of shoulder more
of that offensive load, and there's just not as much
offensive talent off the ball. But in general, I thought
you got to see a little taste of what it
could look like in the big picture as Lucas starts
to get going. That's a beautiful thing about all of this.
They've been winning with defense. This is the sixth consecutive
game where the Lakers held their opponents to one hundred
and two points or fewer. This is now a twenty
(07:52):
one game span of the Lakers being the best defense
in the NBA. That's over a fourth of the season.
It's a beautiful thing for the Lakers fans because the
thing that I've been most excited about with this team
in the big picture is what they're capable of on
the offense. Event I imagine a five man grouping with Lebron,
Luca and Austin, Dorian Finney Smith and Ruey Hatchamura that
(08:12):
could achieve a level of unguardability in a playoff context
when Luca gets back to the level that we all
know that Lucas capable of reaching. Right, Lebron was fantastic
again in this game. By the way, He's been doing
a great job of just kind of like pulling the
weight as Luca's been working his way back into rhythm.
It's just wild to me how he's consistently night tonight
(08:34):
playing at an MVP level. I was in awe of
him again tonight. He soundly outplayed Kawhi Leonard, soundly outplayed
James Harden, a couple of stars that are a half
decade younger than him. Just Lebron continues to just be amazing.
I wanted to shout out the Lakers bench in this game, though,
because obviously Ruey hat Chamura is out, then we find
out Austin's out, the Lakers are down two starters, so
(08:55):
I ended up being just Lebron and Luca and a
bunch of discounted role players. But one of the things
that I've been preaching about for a while is the
value of high motor athletes on an NBA roster, especially
on your deep bench. The reason why I'm into this
concept is when your main guys are out of the lineup,
(09:17):
just playing super fucking hard will go a long way
towards keeping your floor up high and giving you a
chance to win games. Jordan Goodwin was insane again in
this game. One of the best scrappers that I've rooted
for in my time as an NBA fan, Jared Vanderbilt
was great. Tray Jemison came in and just played his
ass off Dorrian Phinney Smith always plays hard game, Vincent
(09:39):
always plays hard. I just think that's how you should
build a team when you have championship aspirations and you're
trying to survive the regular season, make sure the guys
that are outside of your normal rotation are guys who
play hard, because that is something you can count on
every single night. When you have offensive players that are
(10:00):
not very good and that's why they're end of the
bench guys, they could be terrible on a night when
they don't have their jump shot going, or when they
don't have, you know, a matchup where they're facing switching
and they have to create more shots for themselves. Like,
you're gonna run into a lot more weaknesses in that regard.
And here's the thing. Jordan Goodwin struggled to knock down
spot up threes today. Tree Jemison had a couple of
plays where he you know, fumbled the ball away in traffic.
(10:22):
There are going you know, a lot of Jared Vanderbilt, right,
there's gonna be moments where you're dealing with those guys
in their offensive limitations come to the surface. Jared Vanderbilt
still struggles to catch anything in traffic, right, but like
just by competing and playing their ass off, like I thought,
one of the biggest plays of the game is when
the Clippers took that lead off of I believe it
was off of a Kwi Hindard three at the top
(10:43):
of the key on the left side where I believe
Luca goes down and scores, and on the inbound Jordan
Goodwin gets a steal in another layup and it reversed
it back to the Lakers being in the lead. It
like completely flipped the momentum and Luca ended up taking
that group into having a small lead going into the
fourth quarter. That's a scrappy play that made a huge difference.
(11:03):
Jared Vanderbilt scrapping, getting on the floor, taking the ball
away from James Harden and drawing foul gave Vincent he
committed a kicking violation on this play, but applying ball
pressure and kicking the ball away from James Harden and again,
if you don't hear the whistle, you just keep playing,
and he just ran beat everybody to the basketball, got
that ball, ran it out and transitioned and got a
lay up. Those dudes scrapped all game long, and it
(11:27):
gave the Lakers a chance to win, even down two
of their most important offensive players, and Lebron and Luca
just grinded out enough buckets against switches out above the
break in order to get enough to win that particular game.
I thought the Zubox matchup was interesting. I mean, it's
the same type of player as Jokic in terms of
(11:49):
like a guy that's just way too big for any
Laker to guard, but it's a very different type of
matchup because Jokic was the center of the game plan
and everything they did was built around like helping off
of these non shoes and containing Jokics, right, and like
even with Jamal Murray, they were willing to concede these
like mildly contested pull up jump shots out above the break.
Right with Zubos though, like he's not the focus of
(12:11):
the game plan. The game plan was focused around Kawhi
Leonard and James Harden. A lot of similar stuff to
what we've seen in other matchups where they were sending
all sorts of help at Kawhi Leonard, particularly when he
would turn his back, so that when he would go
to spin off of a guy, he would just run
into bodies. They just did a great job of making
Kawhi Leonard feel like he was playing in a crowd.
They pressed up on James Harden's right shoulder so that
(12:33):
they could contest without getting up underneath his landing zone,
so he wouldn't get to the foul line. Although Jackson
Hayes did have a really really bad foul in the
fourth quarter where he reached in on James Harden just
stuck his hand right on James Harden's left arm, and
that's just James has been just had an automatic trigger
to just rise and fire when he sees that for
the last half, you know, you know, five seven years
(12:55):
of his career to draw additional foul shots right. So like,
But for the most part, they played Harden's right shoulder.
They tried to funnel him into help where Jackson Hayes
was always waiting and he was trying to take that floater.
I think he ended up going one for ten from three.
They did a good job of closing that gap and
keeping things difficult for him, and it worked. They held
Kawhi and James Harden to thirty nine points on thirty
(13:16):
nine shots. They forced him into eight turnovers. I thought
it was another impressive defensive game plan from JJ Reddick,
but again you end up giving things to take things away, right,
just like in the Denver series or Denver game, the
Lakers were conceding wide open looks to Aaron Gordon, Russell Westbrook,
Christian Brown. Right in this matchup, it was like Zubach
(13:37):
was getting some catches, He was getting some catches on
the roll, and like the Lakers were constantly reacting to
Zubach when he'd already have deep post position as opposed
to denying Jokics fronting the posts, forcing him to catch
the ball further out so that they could mitigate some
of his size. Was Zubach by the time he caught
it underneath the basket most of the time they were
just dead to rights already, and Zubach was just able
(13:59):
to shoot a little bok shot over the top where
he's so dead lean. Zubatch is just an awesome player.
I think, what do you have like twenty seven and
sixteen something like that in that game. The thing that
has been really impressive to me was Zubach in particular,
is like his floater touch, Like when he would catch
and there wouldn't be somebody on him, he'd be seven
eight feet from the basket, he just turn and shoot
like a little floater that would just softly go in
(14:19):
the basket every single time. He's just a really good player.
And that was where the Lakers decided to have their
defense bend without breaking, and they gave up a ton
to Zoobach, they held everyone else in check and again
held another opponent to one hundred and two points or less.
The Lakers are now seventeen and four in their last
(14:40):
twenty one games. That's the best record in the NBA,
their tenth in offense, first in defense, eighth in defensive rebounding.
On the Clippers front, the only thing I wanted to
get into there, The biggest concern for me that stood
out was just the amount of lift that Kawhi Leonard
was getting on his jump shot. Kawhi was shooting a
really flatball tonight, and it was barely getting over the
(15:02):
front of the rim unless he was wide open, like
if he was wide open. That thing was going in
and Kawhi just has a very robotic jump shot form
to where like if he kind of gets into his
energy transfer from the ground up and no one disrupts that,
he's gonna knock it down, right. But like just about
everything that was contested and everything that involved him trying
to shoot through you know, congested defense around him, he
(15:25):
struggled to get lyft. And again, like when Kawhi's at
his best, he's always powering through guys, bumping them off
with his shoulder, getting to his spot, rising cleanly, and
just it just pops in off the back of the
rim over and over and over again when he's at
his best. And like he's up to seventeen games this
(15:45):
year and he's just not getting lyft. I think he's
actually up to eighteen games this year. He's just not
getting lyft. And that's the part that concerns me as
part of as as far as like his base goes
and just like whether or not his knee is capable
of getting to where to be for the Clippers to
make a real run. But big win for the Lakers again,
five out of seven against the Clippers, they've flipped that script.
(16:07):
The one thing I'll the last thing I'll say in
the Laker front, Guys, like, like I talked about after
the Minnesota game, my biggest concern with this team is injuries.
They've been playing their asses off, they've been competing, but
guys are starting to drop. Bruy goes down, Austin goes down.
We haven't even gotten to the forty year old or
the dude who's you know, was significantly overweighted a couple
(16:28):
of weeks ago and has already dealt with calf issues
throughout the season. So, like, I'm a little worried about
the Lakers on the injury front. It's basically the main
piece of pessimism that I'm contending with right now as
a fan of the team. But they are playing some
really good basketball, and I do think they have a
formula to where they can keep things afloat until they
get guys back into the lineup. All right, Moving on
(17:02):
to Calves Celtics. So the Celtics just jump them right away.
Calves missed a couple of decent looks from three. The
Celtics are just immediately on fire. I thought Tatum came
out looking fantastic, hitting jump shots, spraying the ball out
to shooters, they jump up twenty five to three. Doris
Burke had an interesting comment on the broadcast talking about
(17:22):
how like the Calves just didn't look like the like
they believed they belonged on the same floor with the Celtics,
Like they just had this energy in that first stretch
of the game where they just didn't look like they
believed they could win. And there was a really cool
quote that the broadcast showed from Kenny Atkinson in the
huddle saying, like, come on, guys, like this is not us, Like,
(17:46):
just believe in what you're doing. Step in and knock
some shots down, right, And that's what I thought turned
it around. There were two things that I thought like
kind of just changed the tone and tender of the
game after that twenty five to three start, first drible
penetration from Darius Garland. He started getting buy people off
the dribble and getting the defense into rotation to generate
some quality shots. That just kind of started to pick
(18:07):
up the pace for Cleveland in this game. And then
a couple of shooters entered the game, a couple of
guys that came in with confidence and knocked down some shots.
DeAndre Hunter and Ti Jerome both stepped in and each
knockdown two threes. Ti Jerome, who can be really aggressive
as a pull up shooter, hit two kind of contested
threes and like had a little bit of attitude about it,
(18:28):
and it just loosened up the team, and you could
tell that helped them believe that they could get back
into the game and they started to settle down and
play Cavs basketball. They started to get stops run out
in transition, attacking the Celtics defense before it got set.
I thought Darius Garland did a really nice job of
like getting up the ball, the ball at the floor
quickly and quickly getting into a screening action to immediately
(18:50):
draw two to the ball, and then he would drive
off of it, drawn nail heelpi to the wing and
someone was wide open. Like consistently, they started to get
like some really great looks and it got them go
on the offensive end of the floor and then on defense,
sticking to the game plan, not overreacting to Tatum and
Brown when they were beating switches. This was, you know,
this is what I've always talked about in terms of
(19:11):
like what I believe is the best strategy to defend
the Boston Celtics, and that's switch contain. Try to bait
Jalen and Jason into pull up jump shots and hope
that they settle a bunch and that you can keep
them out of rotation, keep them from getting the wide
open catch and shoot threes and the easy stuff at
the rim that makes them unbeatable. And by the way,
(19:31):
like it was, their defense was breaking early on, they
were conceding the switches. Tatum was picking on everybody, a
lot of Garland, but a ton against the Bigs, a
lot of Evan Mobley and Jared Allen in space where
Jayson Tatum was just going to work and like Jalen
Brown did most of his work against Darius Garland, did
a ton of damage there, did some damage there in
(19:52):
the fourth quarter. But like I was really impressed by
Jason Tatum in his ISO possessions against Evan Mobley and
Jared Alla. He was just driving hard at Evan Mobley
and just like shucking him off with that right shoulder
and getting easy looks to doing the same thing to
Jared Allen, although he can't dislodge him as well. But
he was showing a lot of impressive over the top
(20:13):
short and mid range shot making against Jared Allen, he
who's beating him off the dribble. There was a lot
of good for the Celtics attacking Cleveland's game plan in
the first half. But again, the goal there for Kenny
Atkinson is to stay out of rotation as much as
possible and limit Boston's catch and shoot looks. In order
to do that, you have to not send too much
(20:33):
help and count on those guys to just do the
best they can and hope that they eventually wear down
over the course of the game and that you start
to get stops when you need him late. By the way,
Boston averages thirty two catch and shoot jump shot attempts
per game, which is the second most in the entire NBA.
The only generated twenty catch and shoot catch and shoot
(20:54):
shot attempts in this particular game because they stayed out
of rotation, because they allowed Jon Tatum and Jaylen Brown
to play one on one And by the way, in
the first half, Boston got one point five to four
points per ISO and they were getting cooked. But in
the second half just one point per ISO flat. That's
(21:15):
much more tenable. And then down the stretch. Cleveland took
a page right out of Boston's book and started doing
hunting of their own, as Donovan Mitchell just started relentlessly
picking on Sam Hauser and was just consistently generating great
stuff against him. He had twelve points and two assists
in the fourth quarter. I thought he was incredible all night,
Like as great as Jason Tatum was. Donovan Mitchell was
(21:37):
basically going step first step with him, and there just
aren't that many players in the league who can do
that super impressive off the dribbles shot making the step
back three, was going really deadly floater tonight. He was
getting into the lane and just like shooting that a
little easy five to seven foot shot over the top.
He was killing the Celtics with that and then Evan Mobley.
One of the concepts that I talk a lot about
(21:59):
in this show is the idea of, like, you know
what it's like as a basketball player when you're playing poorly,
and how you react to that, and how you stay
engaged and understand that like nothing really matters. No one's
going to remember any of it as long as you
make a play that helps your team win and you
get out of there with the win. Evan Mobley had
a rough game through three quarters. He was picking up
(22:21):
some fouls, he was badly missing some jump shots. He
wasn't really accomplishing much as a scorer, but he was
amazing in that fourth quarter. He hit two massive threes,
He had four offensive rebounds, a couple of putbacks. He
finished the fourth quarter with eleven points and eight rebounds,
had two of the biggest like had several of the
biggest shots of the night, and I thought he was amazing.
(22:41):
And now no one's going to look back at that
game and think Evan Mobley played poorly because he found
a way to make plays when his team needed to
in the fourth quarter and they got got out of
there with the win. Really impressive Resilien. It's not the
whole team, but especially from Evan Mobley. Big picture with
the Cavs, I thought this was an incredibly impressive win,
regardless of the surrounding context. To survive a twenty five
(23:04):
to three start and another big Celtics run in the
third quarter where they go up by seventeen to win
on the road in that building against that team, I
thought it was just remarkable mental toughness in belief that
they were unwavering and they're just like attack and just
(23:24):
like eventually Boston will show some cracks and we're gonna
work our way back into this game. And they did.
They completely turned around the vibes from the beginning of
the game. And that's twice this year that they beat
the Celtics in games that they looked like they lost
control of. Again, if you remember the game in Cleveland
that Boston or that Cleveland won, Tatum was picking on Garland,
doing a bunch of damage short range shot making, looked
(23:44):
like the Celtics were gonna get out of there with
the win. Donovan Mitchell again just a bunch of crazy
shot making down the stretch as he helped pull that
game out. But at the same time, I do think
it's important to acknowledge that there was a dynamic gap
play in that fourth quarter that won't be in play
if these two teams meet in the playoffs. The Calves
had an easy target to attack in crunch time in
(24:07):
Sam Hauser. In a playoff series, that won't be Sam Hauser,
that'll be Drew Holliday. That's the thing that's scary about
this matchup in the big picture, and what makes the
Celtics such a dangerous team to deal with in a
two week context. The Celtics will always have ways to
attack you, especially if you're Cleveland. Right Like Darius Garland,
(24:28):
Tatum and Brown both feel very comfortable in that matchup.
Jason Tatum, as he demonstrated tonight, looks very comfortable attacking
Cleveland's bigs in switches. But the Calves will not have
those same high quality options unless the Celtics enter that
series with a bunch of injuries. That's more or less
where I'm at with this matchup at this point. If
(24:48):
the Celtics are fully healthy, the Calves can win. But
I'm definitely going to pick the Celtics. But if the
Seas go into that series with a couple of injuries,
say it like two of their core six guys, to
where someone like a Howser has to play, or someone
like a Pritchard has to play, then this series looks
(25:09):
a lot more like a coin flip to me, and
we'd be foolish should not consider that as a potential outcome.
When chrisops Porzingis missed a bunch of time in the
playoffs last year, so yeah, I think health is very
important for the Celtics, and I think it's important that
they continue to manage the injuries the way they have
been with all their guys throughout the season because it's
so important that they get there with everyone available. On
(25:33):
the Celtics front, I didn't love the idea of Jalen
Brown taking nine shots in the fourth quarter with how
well Jason Tatum was playing. There were some good possessions
there against Aarius Garland, but there are some really tough
shots mixed in there too. And again, like as a team,
you only managed eighteen points in the fourth quarter. Very
few of those catch and shoot type of attempts generated
in the fourth quarter. That's where it becomes an issue.
(25:55):
There was a brief stretch there in the middle of
the fourth where Kenny Atkinson went small to mobile and
Allen out out of the game, and the Celtics immediately
played some really good driving kick basketball. And that's the thing.
It's gonna be tough. It's gonna be tough against a
team like Cleveland that can really load up on the
ball with their size, right, But like you can't just
settle for jump shots. There has to be an attempt
(26:18):
to get as much of that. There has to be
an attempt to get as much of that rim pressure
as possible. It looks kind of kobesque at times with
Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown constantly taking really, really difficult
off the dribble jump shots. The Celtics took forty off
the dribble jump shots in this game and only got
thirty six points out of them, zero point nine points
(26:39):
per attenp. That's where the Jays have to be more
deliberate about that same dynamic we talked about in the
Lakers segment earlier in the show. Pressure the rim force
help make it untenable. Gotta generate those driving kick attempts,
catch and shoot threes, easy stuff at the rim. That's
(26:59):
the championship Celtics off the dribble jump shot is a
ceiling raizer. It's a rescue possessions at the end of
the shot clock type of thing. But you can't live
and die on that. Forty off the dribble jump shots
is too many in one game. I'm not gonna be
too concerned about them. On the defensive end in this game,
it's just tough to contain the ball without Drew Holliday,
but they certainly can do better. The Calves did cut
(27:21):
them to pieces after that first quarter. But again, that's
gonna be the one thing that is going to look
like a potential vulnerability for the Celtics this year in
the postseason is if Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown don't
bring the requisite a level of downhill aggression against switches.
All right, let's talk a few minutes of Nuggets before
we get out of here tonight. So I want to
talk about two concepts, the idea of inverted spacing, and
(27:43):
then I want to talk a little bit about the
Nuggets on the defensive end of the floor. So I
was amazed at how easily the Nuggets were picking apart
the Pistons in this game by just having Yokics bring
the ball off the floor and you know, dribble up
to the elbow or the top of the key kind
of extended out above the break, and then they would
just have some of their guys run off ball action,
and Yokic was just making a read as those guys
(28:05):
were either slipping out of a screen or the Pistons
would botch a screen and put two on the ball
on accident. Whatever it was that they would do, Yokic
would make an easy, little over the top pass. And
there's a reason why that's so open for Denver. There
are a lot of teams that run off ball action,
but most of the teams that run off ball action
are not using their center as that type of high
(28:28):
level passing folkrum to where one he can make all
the reads, but two he also is capable of being
a scoring threat to where you have to press up
on him right when you have to press up on Jokic.
Where's the big he's on Jokic. So there's a lot
of space underneath the basket for guys to get openings
(28:50):
slipping out of those actions. And the other part of
it is this is where continuity comes to the surface
for Denver. MPJ has been playing in this system forever.
Al Murray's been playing in this system forever. Aaron Gordon's
been playing in the system forever. Christian Brown's been playing
in the system for a few years now. These guys
have a lot of reps in this system, so they
(29:12):
just know what to do this. Okay. If I set
a backscreen and Jamal Murray cuts through off of my
back screen but his defenders pinned on my top side,
I just wait for Jamal to cut through and then
I kind of push off that guy and I know
that passing angles right there. Because he's on my top side,
I've got an easy opportunity behind me to get to
the rid right like, Oh, it's a they're not switching
(29:36):
and he's kind of staying glued up. I'm just gonna
curl around it. I have an opportunity to attack that way,
or I can come off of yokicch and look to score.
They scored a ton on cuts in this game, nineteen
points off cuts. It was very similar to the Pacers
game or the Portland game a few weeks back, where
they just picked him apart with off ball action, with
Jokic operating as that passing fulcrum. It actually reminds me
(29:59):
a little bit of the Golden State Warriors when they
were in their peak there in the you know, mid
twenty tens, because they played such a unique style that
in the regular season context especially, but even in playoffs
in the beginning of series, as teams had to adjust,
they would do a lot of damage to teams just
because it'd be like, Oh, I'm used to playing all
(30:21):
these normal NBA teams, Now I'm playing Golden State, and
I'm being run through this blender of all of this
action as I'm chasing Steph and Clay around and Draymond's
strowing fake dribble handoffs, and if we blitz, they're just
so good at executing these four on threes they would
just pick teams apart like that, Right, that's a similar
effect that Denver can have on teams to where they
(30:41):
just have such a unique play style. Actually, I think
Tyre's Albert, if I remember correctly, I saw a social
media clip of Tyre's Albert making a mention of this himself,
talking about his experience and defending some of the stuff
that he's seen online about people saying all the teams
in the NBA play the same. No, they don't, and
I agree, But like that's part of the disadvantage that
(31:03):
Denver presents the teams is they just play such a
unique style that it can kind of catch teams off
guard if they're not used to it. Right. I just
thought it was really interesting watching the Pistons games. They
got again a very convincing win against a Pistons team
that had been kicking everybody's butt for a while. By
the way, Javal Murray was amazing in that game. I
want to shout out Zeke Nausey too. Zike Nagy had
(31:24):
like a ridiculous defensive set of plays in the first half.
Like he like had a dig down play where he
dug down on a drive and like close out to
Tim Hardaway Junior and blocked him at the three point line.
He like met Asar Thompson at the rim and transition
and blocked him. He had another block on a rear
view contest of Tim Hardaway Junior where he chased him
over the top of the screen. He defended Tobias Harris
(31:47):
well on a post up. He did a lot of
good work on Kate Cunningham in the second half where
he's just absorbing contact and just making him feel like
he was playing in a crowd. I thought Zeke was fantastic,
big win for the Nuggets to bounce back from that
Bucks game. But I do want to talk a little
bit about the defense because they got picked a part
at stretches in the Bucks game, and they really got
(32:07):
picked apart in the Lakers game. And there's this consistent
issue that's risen to the surface that I've seen, which
is the Nuggets are getting picked part in rotation. Now,
as we talked about after the Nuggets game, there's a
certain amount of existing in rotation for Denver that they
can't avoid, basically because how in the world are you
going to be able to defend with Luca or with
excuse me, NICOLEA Jokic in space? You can't If you
(32:30):
have him switched ball screens, You're asking him to guard
on the perimeter. That's not going to work. He's not
a good enough rim protector to run deep drop. So
you're kind of limited in terms of defensive scheme for
Denver with Jokic at the level in ball screens. But
they've been getting killed there. So how do the Nuggets
get to the point where they can defend at a
level that is high enough to win the championship within
(32:53):
the concept of that defensive scheme? And there are two
elements that I want to do a little bit of
a deeper dive in today. First, this is on Jokis.
When he is at the level, he has to be
much much, much more active with his hands. For the
record against the Detroit I thought he had a lot
more quality possessions like that early in the game. Met
(33:15):
Kate up at the level got a deflection as he
was trying to gather his dribble. There was another one
where he got up on the level against Kate and
apply good ball pressure and Kate kind of panicked and
rifle to pass out of bounds through the baseline. The
reason why being active at the level is so important
with Jokic's hands is because being in rotation is hard.
(33:39):
One of the things you can do to make existing
in rotation easier is to disrupt the first pass. If
you get up to the level and the first pass
is just easily rifled across the court or easily dropped
off to the role man, now you're existing in rotation
and you're dead to rights because every close out is
like a fifteen twenty foot close out and you're just
(34:02):
behind the eight ball, so to speak. But if you
apply a little pressure and you either get a little
bit of a deflection, or you forced that pass to
be off target a little bit, or you force that
pass to go up in the air for a while
before it gets to where it needs to go, all
of a sudden, the first rotation has a head start
(34:25):
because the ball getting from point A to point B,
whether that's the role man or the weak side. The
ball getting to that point is now delayed, and if
it's delayed by a split second, that split second can
be what it takes for you to make that first rotation,
and then from there you have to be as sharp
as possible with your rotations on the backside. Denver's not
(34:49):
been good with their rotations for the most part this season.
If you can, you can do a lot to make
shooters shoot poorly by making them feel rushed, and you
can make them feel rushed by being sharper with your closeouts. Again,
the openings are going to be there, they're baked into
the coverage. You're bringing Yokich up to the level that's unavoidable,
(35:10):
but you can be more prepared for it on the
back end, and I think that that's going to be
a non negotiable for the Nuggets. For them to get
to where they need to go, they need Yokic to
be more active with his hands at the level, and
they need their weekside rotations to be substantially sharper as
they try to contain these teams. All right, guys, that
(35:31):
is all I have is always as sincerely appreciate you
guys for supporting me and supporting the show. We will
be back. I'm recording another episode on Sunday night before
I go out of town next week that'll be released
on Monday morning. That'll break down a bunch of games
from Sunday. I'm also pre recording a mail bag that
will most likely be airing on Tuesday, so that's why
we're doing the mail Bag on Tuesday instead of Friday
this week. But again, as always, as sincerely appreciate you
(35:52):
guys for supporting me and supporting the show, and I'll
see you guys next time the volume. As always, I
appreciate you for listening to and supporting Hoops tonight. It
would actually be really helpful for us if you guys
would take a second and leave a rating and a review.
As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if
you could take a minute to do that, I'd really
(36:12):
appreciate it.
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b ball. All right, welcome to hoops tonight. You're at
the volume heavy Saturday. Everybody, Oh balve. You guys are
having a great weekend. I'm actually staying up to record
this on Friday night. We've got a jam Pack show
(01:46):
for you guys. Today. I'm gonna be breaking down the
Clippers Lakers showdown from last night. As the Lakers, after
getting dominated by the Clippers for a long time, they've
actually won five out of seven in that matchup another
super interesting example of the Lakers dealing with the switching defense.
We're going to talk about that. After that, we're going
to get into a showdown between the two teams that
I believe will eventually face off in the Eastern Conference Finals.
(02:08):
The Cleveland Cavaliers survive two massive runs from the Boston
Celtics to tie the season series at two, getting a
big win on the road in Boston. Then at the
tail end of the show, I want to talk a
little bit of Denver Nuggets. They've had a uneven stretch
of games here recently. They're two and one, I believe
on the road trip so far. I want to talk
about two concepts with them. One, the concept of inverted
(02:30):
spacing as I watched Jokic pick apart the Pistons off
ball defenders through just acting as a passing folkrim at
the top of the key. And then I want to
talk about the stuff that Denver has to get better
at on defense if they want to make a legitimate
run to get back into championship contention. You guys know
the drip before we get started. To subscribe to the
Hoops and I YouTube channels. You don't miss any more
of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JCNLT.
(02:52):
You guys, don't mis sh announcements. Don't forget about our
podcast feed wherever gets your podcast on our Hoops Tonight.
It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and
a review on that front. The last, but not least,
keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments. We'll get
to him on Fridays throughout the remainder of the season.
All right, let's talk some basketball. So when I looked
at the initial matchups to start this Clippers Lakers game,
(03:15):
I saw the Tylu put Zubach on Dorian Phinney Smith,
and so my first impression there was, oh, we might
have a repeat of the Knicks game when they put
Karl Anthony Towns on Dorian Phinney Smith, and the Lakers
just spammed a bunch of pick and pop action to
get Dorian Phinney Smith in space. But there was a
very smart defensive strategy that Tylu implemented in this game.
(03:39):
After watching a bunch of film of the Lakers struggling
against switching, he just decided to have Zubach switch all
those screens. That's why you saw so many of those
ISOs out around the top of the key with either
Lebron or Luca attacking Zubach in space, and I thought
generally did a good job. He pretty much contains rebel
penetration for the most part and force those guys into
(04:01):
a lot of jump shots over the top. Lebron was
really carrying the load in the early part of the
game by just settling into that mid range jump shot
right around like seventeen eighteen feet out kind of by
the top of the key area. But again, like the
Lakers did struggle again for the most part, and you know,
I don't think they're going to really generate a ton
(04:21):
of offense against switching defenses until Luca gets back to
the Luka Dancic that we know he's capable of being
an MVP level shot maker. Right. We saw even just
a tiny little touch of it at the end of
the game when Luca made a couple of big step
back threes that led to an adjustment from Tye. We'll
get to that in a second. But until Luca really
(04:43):
gets back to his MVP level form on the offensive end,
and until the Lakers start knocking down their catching shoot attempts,
this is their third straight game where they got less
than one point per catch and shoot attempt. They've been
struggling to shoot the basketball a lot. I do think
they'll shoot better in the long run. But until those
two things turn around, until Luca gets going, and until
they start knocking down the catch and shoot shots, they're
(05:04):
going to struggle against defenses that switch. And they struggled
for long stretches in this game. But we did see
a little Luca run in that fourth quarter. That was
a taste of what things should look like in the
long run when Luca gets going. So it's a couple
of step back threes over zubach In switches one on
the left wing, one kind of out on the right
side of the floor. Now at that point, Tyleru had
(05:24):
to make an adjustment. He started putting two on the ball.
Once Luka put two on the ball, then they were
able to get the defense into rotation and generate quality
looks out of that and open look for Dorian Finney
Smith in the right corner that he knocked down a
dunk for Jackson Hayes on a slip to the rim.
They started to get good looks because they got two
to the ball again, like We're gonna talk about this
(05:44):
a lot when we get into the Celtics game as well.
But there's like an order of operations. In order to
break down a switching defense. You have to start getting
a matchup you like and attacking it well enough that
you score at any rate that is untenable for the defense.
Once you start scoring at a rate that's untenable for
the defense, then you can start bringing two to the ball.
(06:05):
Once you can start bringing two to the ball, then
you can start to generate the same type of opportunities
that they got in the Denver game, where it's like,
now we're getting a lot of these four on threes
in the ball's popping around, We're getting wide open shots
for people. They actually handled the double teams better in
this game than they did it was the I believe
it was the Dallas game if I remember correctly, that
they kind of struggled against double teams. But again, like
(06:28):
that's a little tiny taste for Lakers fans and what
that could look like in the big picture. Luca going
on these scoring runs against switches leading to him getting blitzed,
then you have all this opportunity on the backside of that.
Now again, like it got a little tricky in this
game because it's not Austin Reeves. Austin Reeves leaves the
game with the calf injury. He's gonna be getting an
(06:48):
MRI on that. Hopefully Austin's okay, we'll find out soon.
Ruyacha Mura Jj Redick talked after the game, is dealing
with Peteller tendonitis or tendon tompathy, if I remember correctly,
like something's going on with the front of his knee.
He's gonna be out for about a week. So take
those two guys out of the rotation. You're bringing guys
into the rotation that are lesser offensive players. You know,
(07:08):
Trey Jemison basically operating as the backup center when that's
been a lot of small ball looks anchored by Ruey
and then you're getting a lot more Jordan Goodwin because
Austin Reeves is out of the lineup. Right, those guys
are not as good in terms of offensive threats. Although
they scraped tonight. We're gonna talk about it in a
little bit. So they're gonna be a little tricky in
these four on threes in the next couple of weeks.
(07:30):
As Lebron and Luca have to kind of shoulder more
of that offensive load, and there's just not as much
offensive talent off the ball. But in general, I thought
you got to see a little taste of what it
could look like in the big picture as Lucas starts
to get going. That's a beautiful thing about all of this.
They've been winning with defense. This is the sixth consecutive
game where the Lakers held their opponents to one hundred
and two points or fewer. This is now a twenty
(07:52):
one game span of the Lakers being the best defense
in the NBA. That's over a fourth of the season.
It's a beautiful thing for the Lakers fans because the
thing that I've been most excited about with this team
in the big picture is what they're capable of on
the offense. Event I imagine a five man grouping with Lebron,
Luca and Austin, Dorian Finney Smith and Ruey Hatchamura that
(08:12):
could achieve a level of unguardability in a playoff context
when Luca gets back to the level that we all
know that Lucas capable of reaching. Right, Lebron was fantastic
again in this game. By the way, He's been doing
a great job of just kind of like pulling the
weight as Luca's been working his way back into rhythm.
It's just wild to me how he's consistently night tonight
(08:34):
playing at an MVP level. I was in awe of
him again tonight. He soundly outplayed Kawhi Leonard, soundly outplayed
James Harden, a couple of stars that are a half
decade younger than him. Just Lebron continues to just be amazing.
I wanted to shout out the Lakers bench in this game, though,
because obviously Ruey hat Chamura is out, then we find
out Austin's out, the Lakers are down two starters, so
(08:55):
I ended up being just Lebron and Luca and a
bunch of discounted role players. But one of the things
that I've been preaching about for a while is the
value of high motor athletes on an NBA roster, especially
on your deep bench. The reason why I'm into this
concept is when your main guys are out of the lineup,
(09:17):
just playing super fucking hard will go a long way
towards keeping your floor up high and giving you a
chance to win games. Jordan Goodwin was insane again in
this game. One of the best scrappers that I've rooted
for in my time as an NBA fan, Jared Vanderbilt
was great. Tray Jemison came in and just played his
ass off Dorrian Phinney Smith always plays hard game, Vincent
(09:39):
always plays hard. I just think that's how you should
build a team when you have championship aspirations and you're
trying to survive the regular season, make sure the guys
that are outside of your normal rotation are guys who
play hard, because that is something you can count on
every single night. When you have offensive players that are
(10:00):
not very good and that's why they're end of the
bench guys, they could be terrible on a night when
they don't have their jump shot going, or when they
don't have, you know, a matchup where they're facing switching
and they have to create more shots for themselves. Like,
you're gonna run into a lot more weaknesses in that regard.
And here's the thing. Jordan Goodwin struggled to knock down
spot up threes today. Tree Jemison had a couple of
plays where he you know, fumbled the ball away in traffic.
(10:22):
There are going you know, a lot of Jared Vanderbilt, right,
there's gonna be moments where you're dealing with those guys
in their offensive limitations come to the surface. Jared Vanderbilt
still struggles to catch anything in traffic, right, but like
just by competing and playing their ass off, like I thought,
one of the biggest plays of the game is when
the Clippers took that lead off of I believe it
was off of a Kwi Hindard three at the top
(10:43):
of the key on the left side where I believe
Luca goes down and scores, and on the inbound Jordan
Goodwin gets a steal in another layup and it reversed
it back to the Lakers being in the lead. It
like completely flipped the momentum and Luca ended up taking
that group into having a small lead going into the
fourth quarter. That's a scrappy play that made a huge difference.
(11:03):
Jared Vanderbilt scrapping, getting on the floor, taking the ball
away from James Harden and drawing foul gave Vincent he
committed a kicking violation on this play, but applying ball
pressure and kicking the ball away from James Harden and again,
if you don't hear the whistle, you just keep playing,
and he just ran beat everybody to the basketball, got
that ball, ran it out and transitioned and got a
lay up. Those dudes scrapped all game long, and it
(11:27):
gave the Lakers a chance to win, even down two
of their most important offensive players, and Lebron and Luca
just grinded out enough buckets against switches out above the
break in order to get enough to win that particular game.
I thought the Zubox matchup was interesting. I mean, it's
the same type of player as Jokic in terms of
(11:49):
like a guy that's just way too big for any
Laker to guard, but it's a very different type of
matchup because Jokic was the center of the game plan
and everything they did was built around like helping off
of these non shoes and containing Jokics, right, and like
even with Jamal Murray, they were willing to concede these
like mildly contested pull up jump shots out above the break.
Right with Zubos though, like he's not the focus of
(12:11):
the game plan. The game plan was focused around Kawhi
Leonard and James Harden. A lot of similar stuff to
what we've seen in other matchups where they were sending
all sorts of help at Kawhi Leonard, particularly when he
would turn his back, so that when he would go
to spin off of a guy, he would just run
into bodies. They just did a great job of making
Kawhi Leonard feel like he was playing in a crowd.
They pressed up on James Harden's right shoulder so that
(12:33):
they could contest without getting up underneath his landing zone,
so he wouldn't get to the foul line. Although Jackson
Hayes did have a really really bad foul in the
fourth quarter where he reached in on James Harden just
stuck his hand right on James Harden's left arm, and
that's just James has been just had an automatic trigger
to just rise and fire when he sees that for
the last half, you know, you know, five seven years
(12:55):
of his career to draw additional foul shots right. So like,
But for the most part, they played Harden's right shoulder.
They tried to funnel him into help where Jackson Hayes
was always waiting and he was trying to take that floater.
I think he ended up going one for ten from three.
They did a good job of closing that gap and
keeping things difficult for him, and it worked. They held
Kawhi and James Harden to thirty nine points on thirty
(13:16):
nine shots. They forced him into eight turnovers. I thought
it was another impressive defensive game plan from JJ Reddick,
but again you end up giving things to take things away, right,
just like in the Denver series or Denver game, the
Lakers were conceding wide open looks to Aaron Gordon, Russell Westbrook,
Christian Brown. Right in this matchup, it was like Zubach
(13:37):
was getting some catches, He was getting some catches on
the roll, and like the Lakers were constantly reacting to
Zubach when he'd already have deep post position as opposed
to denying Jokics fronting the posts, forcing him to catch
the ball further out so that they could mitigate some
of his size. Was Zubach by the time he caught
it underneath the basket most of the time they were
just dead to rights already, and Zubach was just able
(13:59):
to shoot a little bok shot over the top where
he's so dead lean. Zubatch is just an awesome player.
I think, what do you have like twenty seven and
sixteen something like that in that game. The thing that
has been really impressive to me was Zubach in particular,
is like his floater touch, Like when he would catch
and there wouldn't be somebody on him, he'd be seven
eight feet from the basket, he just turn and shoot
like a little floater that would just softly go in
(14:19):
the basket every single time. He's just a really good player.
And that was where the Lakers decided to have their
defense bend without breaking, and they gave up a ton
to Zoobach, they held everyone else in check and again
held another opponent to one hundred and two points or less.
The Lakers are now seventeen and four in their last
(14:40):
twenty one games. That's the best record in the NBA,
their tenth in offense, first in defense, eighth in defensive rebounding.
On the Clippers front, the only thing I wanted to
get into there, The biggest concern for me that stood
out was just the amount of lift that Kawhi Leonard
was getting on his jump shot. Kawhi was shooting a
really flatball tonight, and it was barely getting over the
(15:02):
front of the rim unless he was wide open, like
if he was wide open. That thing was going in
and Kawhi just has a very robotic jump shot form
to where like if he kind of gets into his
energy transfer from the ground up and no one disrupts that,
he's gonna knock it down, right. But like just about
everything that was contested and everything that involved him trying
to shoot through you know, congested defense around him, he
(15:25):
struggled to get lyft. And again, like when Kawhi's at
his best, he's always powering through guys, bumping them off
with his shoulder, getting to his spot, rising cleanly, and
just it just pops in off the back of the
rim over and over and over again when he's at
his best. And like he's up to seventeen games this
(15:45):
year and he's just not getting lyft. I think he's
actually up to eighteen games this year. He's just not
getting lyft. And that's the part that concerns me as
part of as as far as like his base goes
and just like whether or not his knee is capable
of getting to where to be for the Clippers to
make a real run. But big win for the Lakers again,
five out of seven against the Clippers, they've flipped that script.
(16:07):
The one thing I'll the last thing I'll say in
the Laker front, Guys, like, like I talked about after
the Minnesota game, my biggest concern with this team is injuries.
They've been playing their asses off, they've been competing, but
guys are starting to drop. Bruy goes down, Austin goes down.
We haven't even gotten to the forty year old or
the dude who's you know, was significantly overweighted a couple
(16:28):
of weeks ago and has already dealt with calf issues
throughout the season. So, like, I'm a little worried about
the Lakers on the injury front. It's basically the main
piece of pessimism that I'm contending with right now as
a fan of the team. But they are playing some
really good basketball, and I do think they have a
formula to where they can keep things afloat until they
get guys back into the lineup. All right, Moving on
(17:02):
to Calves Celtics. So the Celtics just jump them right away.
Calves missed a couple of decent looks from three. The
Celtics are just immediately on fire. I thought Tatum came
out looking fantastic, hitting jump shots, spraying the ball out
to shooters, they jump up twenty five to three. Doris
Burke had an interesting comment on the broadcast talking about
(17:22):
how like the Calves just didn't look like the like
they believed they belonged on the same floor with the Celtics,
Like they just had this energy in that first stretch
of the game where they just didn't look like they
believed they could win. And there was a really cool
quote that the broadcast showed from Kenny Atkinson in the
huddle saying, like, come on, guys, like this is not us, Like,
(17:46):
just believe in what you're doing. Step in and knock
some shots down, right, And that's what I thought turned
it around. There were two things that I thought like
kind of just changed the tone and tender of the
game after that twenty five to three start, first drible
penetration from Darius Garland. He started getting buy people off
the dribble and getting the defense into rotation to generate
some quality shots. That just kind of started to pick
(18:07):
up the pace for Cleveland in this game. And then
a couple of shooters entered the game, a couple of
guys that came in with confidence and knocked down some shots.
DeAndre Hunter and Ti Jerome both stepped in and each
knockdown two threes. Ti Jerome, who can be really aggressive
as a pull up shooter, hit two kind of contested
threes and like had a little bit of attitude about it,
(18:28):
and it just loosened up the team, and you could
tell that helped them believe that they could get back
into the game and they started to settle down and
play Cavs basketball. They started to get stops run out
in transition, attacking the Celtics defense before it got set.
I thought Darius Garland did a really nice job of
like getting up the ball, the ball at the floor
quickly and quickly getting into a screening action to immediately
(18:50):
draw two to the ball, and then he would drive
off of it, drawn nail heelpi to the wing and
someone was wide open. Like consistently, they started to get
like some really great looks and it got them go
on the offensive end of the floor and then on defense,
sticking to the game plan, not overreacting to Tatum and
Brown when they were beating switches. This was, you know,
this is what I've always talked about in terms of
(19:11):
like what I believe is the best strategy to defend
the Boston Celtics, and that's switch contain. Try to bait
Jalen and Jason into pull up jump shots and hope
that they settle a bunch and that you can keep
them out of rotation, keep them from getting the wide
open catch and shoot threes and the easy stuff at
the rim that makes them unbeatable. And by the way,
(19:31):
like it was, their defense was breaking early on, they
were conceding the switches. Tatum was picking on everybody, a
lot of Garland, but a ton against the Bigs, a
lot of Evan Mobley and Jared Allen in space where
Jayson Tatum was just going to work and like Jalen
Brown did most of his work against Darius Garland, did
a ton of damage there, did some damage there in
(19:52):
the fourth quarter. But like I was really impressed by
Jason Tatum in his ISO possessions against Evan Mobley and
Jared Alla. He was just driving hard at Evan Mobley
and just like shucking him off with that right shoulder
and getting easy looks to doing the same thing to
Jared Allen, although he can't dislodge him as well. But
he was showing a lot of impressive over the top
(20:13):
short and mid range shot making against Jared Allen, he
who's beating him off the dribble. There was a lot
of good for the Celtics attacking Cleveland's game plan in
the first half. But again, the goal there for Kenny
Atkinson is to stay out of rotation as much as
possible and limit Boston's catch and shoot looks. In order
to do that, you have to not send too much
(20:33):
help and count on those guys to just do the
best they can and hope that they eventually wear down
over the course of the game and that you start
to get stops when you need him late. By the way,
Boston averages thirty two catch and shoot jump shot attempts
per game, which is the second most in the entire NBA.
The only generated twenty catch and shoot catch and shoot
(20:54):
shot attempts in this particular game because they stayed out
of rotation, because they allowed Jon Tatum and Jaylen Brown
to play one on one And by the way, in
the first half, Boston got one point five to four
points per ISO and they were getting cooked. But in
the second half just one point per ISO flat. That's
(21:15):
much more tenable. And then down the stretch. Cleveland took
a page right out of Boston's book and started doing
hunting of their own, as Donovan Mitchell just started relentlessly
picking on Sam Hauser and was just consistently generating great
stuff against him. He had twelve points and two assists
in the fourth quarter. I thought he was incredible all night,
Like as great as Jason Tatum was. Donovan Mitchell was
(21:37):
basically going step first step with him, and there just
aren't that many players in the league who can do
that super impressive off the dribbles shot making the step
back three, was going really deadly floater tonight. He was
getting into the lane and just like shooting that a
little easy five to seven foot shot over the top.
He was killing the Celtics with that and then Evan Mobley.
One of the concepts that I talk a lot about
(21:59):
in this show is the idea of, like, you know
what it's like as a basketball player when you're playing poorly,
and how you react to that, and how you stay
engaged and understand that like nothing really matters. No one's
going to remember any of it as long as you
make a play that helps your team win and you
get out of there with the win. Evan Mobley had
a rough game through three quarters. He was picking up
(22:21):
some fouls, he was badly missing some jump shots. He
wasn't really accomplishing much as a scorer, but he was
amazing in that fourth quarter. He hit two massive threes,
He had four offensive rebounds, a couple of putbacks. He
finished the fourth quarter with eleven points and eight rebounds,
had two of the biggest like had several of the
biggest shots of the night, and I thought he was amazing.
(22:41):
And now no one's going to look back at that
game and think Evan Mobley played poorly because he found
a way to make plays when his team needed to
in the fourth quarter and they got got out of
there with the win. Really impressive Resilien. It's not the
whole team, but especially from Evan Mobley. Big picture with
the Cavs, I thought this was an incredibly impressive win,
regardless of the surrounding context. To survive a twenty five
(23:04):
to three start and another big Celtics run in the
third quarter where they go up by seventeen to win
on the road in that building against that team, I
thought it was just remarkable mental toughness in belief that
they were unwavering and they're just like attack and just
(23:24):
like eventually Boston will show some cracks and we're gonna
work our way back into this game. And they did.
They completely turned around the vibes from the beginning of
the game. And that's twice this year that they beat
the Celtics in games that they looked like they lost
control of. Again, if you remember the game in Cleveland
that Boston or that Cleveland won, Tatum was picking on Garland,
doing a bunch of damage short range shot making, looked
(23:44):
like the Celtics were gonna get out of there with
the win. Donovan Mitchell again just a bunch of crazy
shot making down the stretch as he helped pull that
game out. But at the same time, I do think
it's important to acknowledge that there was a dynamic gap
play in that fourth quarter that won't be in play
if these two teams meet in the playoffs. The Calves
had an easy target to attack in crunch time in
(24:07):
Sam Hauser. In a playoff series, that won't be Sam Hauser,
that'll be Drew Holliday. That's the thing that's scary about
this matchup in the big picture, and what makes the
Celtics such a dangerous team to deal with in a
two week context. The Celtics will always have ways to
attack you, especially if you're Cleveland. Right Like Darius Garland,
(24:28):
Tatum and Brown both feel very comfortable in that matchup.
Jason Tatum, as he demonstrated tonight, looks very comfortable attacking
Cleveland's bigs in switches. But the Calves will not have
those same high quality options unless the Celtics enter that
series with a bunch of injuries. That's more or less
where I'm at with this matchup at this point. If
(24:48):
the Celtics are fully healthy, the Calves can win. But
I'm definitely going to pick the Celtics. But if the
Seas go into that series with a couple of injuries,
say it like two of their core six guys, to
where someone like a Howser has to play, or someone
like a Pritchard has to play, then this series looks
(25:09):
a lot more like a coin flip to me, and
we'd be foolish should not consider that as a potential outcome.
When chrisops Porzingis missed a bunch of time in the
playoffs last year, so yeah, I think health is very
important for the Celtics, and I think it's important that
they continue to manage the injuries the way they have
been with all their guys throughout the season because it's
so important that they get there with everyone available. On
(25:33):
the Celtics front, I didn't love the idea of Jalen
Brown taking nine shots in the fourth quarter with how
well Jason Tatum was playing. There were some good possessions
there against Aarius Garland, but there are some really tough
shots mixed in there too. And again, like as a team,
you only managed eighteen points in the fourth quarter. Very
few of those catch and shoot type of attempts generated
in the fourth quarter. That's where it becomes an issue.
(25:55):
There was a brief stretch there in the middle of
the fourth where Kenny Atkinson went small to mobile and
Allen out out of the game, and the Celtics immediately
played some really good driving kick basketball. And that's the thing.
It's gonna be tough. It's gonna be tough against a
team like Cleveland that can really load up on the
ball with their size, right, But like you can't just
settle for jump shots. There has to be an attempt
(26:18):
to get as much of that. There has to be
an attempt to get as much of that rim pressure
as possible. It looks kind of kobesque at times with
Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown constantly taking really, really difficult
off the dribble jump shots. The Celtics took forty off
the dribble jump shots in this game and only got
thirty six points out of them, zero point nine points
(26:39):
per attenp. That's where the Jays have to be more
deliberate about that same dynamic we talked about in the
Lakers segment earlier in the show. Pressure the rim force
help make it untenable. Gotta generate those driving kick attempts,
catch and shoot threes, easy stuff at the rim. That's
(26:59):
the championship Celtics off the dribble jump shot is a
ceiling raizer. It's a rescue possessions at the end of
the shot clock type of thing. But you can't live
and die on that. Forty off the dribble jump shots
is too many in one game. I'm not gonna be
too concerned about them. On the defensive end in this game,
it's just tough to contain the ball without Drew Holliday,
but they certainly can do better. The Calves did cut
(27:21):
them to pieces after that first quarter. But again, that's
gonna be the one thing that is going to look
like a potential vulnerability for the Celtics this year in
the postseason is if Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown don't
bring the requisite a level of downhill aggression against switches.
All right, let's talk a few minutes of Nuggets before
we get out of here tonight. So I want to
talk about two concepts, the idea of inverted spacing, and
(27:43):
then I want to talk a little bit about the
Nuggets on the defensive end of the floor. So I
was amazed at how easily the Nuggets were picking apart
the Pistons in this game by just having Yokics bring
the ball off the floor and you know, dribble up
to the elbow or the top of the key kind
of extended out above the break, and then they would
just have some of their guys run off ball action,
and Yokic was just making a read as those guys
(28:05):
were either slipping out of a screen or the Pistons
would botch a screen and put two on the ball
on accident. Whatever it was that they would do, Yokic
would make an easy, little over the top pass. And
there's a reason why that's so open for Denver. There
are a lot of teams that run off ball action,
but most of the teams that run off ball action
are not using their center as that type of high
(28:28):
level passing folkrum to where one he can make all
the reads, but two he also is capable of being
a scoring threat to where you have to press up
on him right when you have to press up on Jokic.
Where's the big he's on Jokic. So there's a lot
of space underneath the basket for guys to get openings
(28:50):
slipping out of those actions. And the other part of
it is this is where continuity comes to the surface
for Denver. MPJ has been playing in this system forever.
Al Murray's been playing in this system forever. Aaron Gordon's
been playing in the system forever. Christian Brown's been playing
in the system for a few years now. These guys
have a lot of reps in this system, so they
(29:12):
just know what to do this. Okay. If I set
a backscreen and Jamal Murray cuts through off of my
back screen but his defenders pinned on my top side,
I just wait for Jamal to cut through and then
I kind of push off that guy and I know
that passing angles right there. Because he's on my top side,
I've got an easy opportunity behind me to get to
the rid right like, Oh, it's a they're not switching
(29:36):
and he's kind of staying glued up. I'm just gonna
curl around it. I have an opportunity to attack that way,
or I can come off of yokicch and look to score.
They scored a ton on cuts in this game, nineteen
points off cuts. It was very similar to the Pacers
game or the Portland game a few weeks back, where
they just picked him apart with off ball action, with
Jokic operating as that passing fulcrum. It actually reminds me
(29:59):
a little bit of the Golden State Warriors when they
were in their peak there in the you know, mid
twenty tens, because they played such a unique style that
in the regular season context especially, but even in playoffs
in the beginning of series, as teams had to adjust,
they would do a lot of damage to teams just
because it'd be like, Oh, I'm used to playing all
(30:21):
these normal NBA teams, Now I'm playing Golden State, and
I'm being run through this blender of all of this
action as I'm chasing Steph and Clay around and Draymond's
strowing fake dribble handoffs, and if we blitz, they're just
so good at executing these four on threes they would
just pick teams apart like that, Right, that's a similar
effect that Denver can have on teams to where they
(30:41):
just have such a unique play style. Actually, I think
Tyre's Albert, if I remember correctly, I saw a social
media clip of Tyre's Albert making a mention of this himself,
talking about his experience and defending some of the stuff
that he's seen online about people saying all the teams
in the NBA play the same. No, they don't, and
I agree, But like that's part of the disadvantage that
(31:03):
Denver presents the teams is they just play such a
unique style that it can kind of catch teams off
guard if they're not used to it. Right. I just
thought it was really interesting watching the Pistons games. They
got again a very convincing win against a Pistons team
that had been kicking everybody's butt for a while. By
the way, Javal Murray was amazing in that game. I
want to shout out Zeke Nausey too. Zike Nagy had
(31:24):
like a ridiculous defensive set of plays in the first half.
Like he like had a dig down play where he
dug down on a drive and like close out to
Tim Hardaway Junior and blocked him at the three point line.
He like met Asar Thompson at the rim and transition
and blocked him. He had another block on a rear
view contest of Tim Hardaway Junior where he chased him
over the top of the screen. He defended Tobias Harris
(31:47):
well on a post up. He did a lot of
good work on Kate Cunningham in the second half where
he's just absorbing contact and just making him feel like
he was playing in a crowd. I thought Zeke was fantastic,
big win for the Nuggets to bounce back from that
Bucks game. But I do want to talk a little
bit about the defense because they got picked a part
at stretches in the Bucks game, and they really got
(32:07):
picked apart in the Lakers game. And there's this consistent
issue that's risen to the surface that I've seen, which
is the Nuggets are getting picked part in rotation. Now,
as we talked about after the Nuggets game, there's a
certain amount of existing in rotation for Denver that they
can't avoid, basically because how in the world are you
going to be able to defend with Luca or with
excuse me, NICOLEA Jokic in space? You can't If you
(32:30):
have him switched ball screens, You're asking him to guard
on the perimeter. That's not going to work. He's not
a good enough rim protector to run deep drop. So
you're kind of limited in terms of defensive scheme for
Denver with Jokic at the level in ball screens. But
they've been getting killed there. So how do the Nuggets
get to the point where they can defend at a
level that is high enough to win the championship within
(32:53):
the concept of that defensive scheme? And there are two
elements that I want to do a little bit of
a deeper dive in today. First, this is on Jokis.
When he is at the level, he has to be
much much, much more active with his hands. For the
record against the Detroit I thought he had a lot
more quality possessions like that early in the game. Met
(33:15):
Kate up at the level got a deflection as he
was trying to gather his dribble. There was another one
where he got up on the level against Kate and
apply good ball pressure and Kate kind of panicked and
rifle to pass out of bounds through the baseline. The
reason why being active at the level is so important
with Jokic's hands is because being in rotation is hard.
(33:39):
One of the things you can do to make existing
in rotation easier is to disrupt the first pass. If
you get up to the level and the first pass
is just easily rifled across the court or easily dropped
off to the role man, now you're existing in rotation
and you're dead to rights because every close out is
like a fifteen twenty foot close out and you're just
(34:02):
behind the eight ball, so to speak. But if you
apply a little pressure and you either get a little
bit of a deflection, or you forced that pass to
be off target a little bit, or you force that
pass to go up in the air for a while
before it gets to where it needs to go, all
of a sudden, the first rotation has a head start
(34:25):
because the ball getting from point A to point B,
whether that's the role man or the weak side. The
ball getting to that point is now delayed, and if
it's delayed by a split second, that split second can
be what it takes for you to make that first rotation,
and then from there you have to be as sharp
as possible with your rotations on the backside. Denver's not
(34:49):
been good with their rotations for the most part this season.
If you can, you can do a lot to make
shooters shoot poorly by making them feel rushed, and you
can make them feel rushed by being sharper with your closeouts. Again,
the openings are going to be there, they're baked into
the coverage. You're bringing Yokich up to the level that's unavoidable,
(35:10):
but you can be more prepared for it on the
back end, and I think that that's going to be
a non negotiable for the Nuggets. For them to get
to where they need to go, they need Yokic to
be more active with his hands at the level, and
they need their weekside rotations to be substantially sharper as
they try to contain these teams. All right, guys, that
(35:31):
is all I have is always as sincerely appreciate you
guys for supporting me and supporting the show. We will
be back. I'm recording another episode on Sunday night before
I go out of town next week that'll be released
on Monday morning. That'll break down a bunch of games
from Sunday. I'm also pre recording a mail bag that
will most likely be airing on Tuesday, so that's why
we're doing the mail Bag on Tuesday instead of Friday
this week. But again, as always, as sincerely appreciate you
(35:52):
guys for supporting me and supporting the show, and I'll
see you guys next time the volume. As always, I
appreciate you for listening to and supporting Hoops tonight. It
would actually be really helpful for us if you guys
would take a second and leave a rating and a review.
As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if
you could take a minute to do that, I'd really
(36:12):
appreciate it.
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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